Frank Mir interview: Fedor should quit MMA
By Zach Arnold | August 31, 2009
A message to MMA’s most beloved atheists in Frank Mir and Joe Silva — I’d be more impressed if you worshipped Richard Dawson instead of Richard Dawkins.
I figured commenters would scratch their heads by the remark up above, which plays off of this. Frank’s on a roll these days in the media. Everyone at their keyboards can go calm down now.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 22 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Hiroshi Hase loses his political seat in Sunday elections
By Zach Arnold | August 30, 2009
The Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling political powerhouse party in Japan for many many years, got crushed today in Sunday elections in Japan. Taro Aso, the extremely unpopular Prime Minister of Japan, will be replaced by Yukio Hatoyama. The projected election win totals show the DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) with 318 ~ 320 seats, the LDP coalition with 136, and 17 seats to other parties (like the Communist Party).
One of the political seats that was targeted in the election was Hiroshi Hase’s House of Representatives seat in District 1 of Ishikawa Prefecture. Hase, the former Japanese pro-wrestling superstar, lost by a reported 8,500 votes to challenger Ken Okuda (49% to 46% or 125,500 to 117,000 votes). Okuda has been Hase’s long-time political rival.
One of the unique parts of watching this Japanese election is that a red flower is placed next to the winner’s name in election results.
Addendum from Dave Ditch
Hiroshi Hase, as a former pro-wrestler in Japan’s legislature, has been at the center of the fallout of the death of Mitsuharu Misawa. Hase, along with management of the major ‘traditional’ promotions, has been trying to work out uniform regulations to prevent premature deaths in the business. Given that Hase has already lost his seat once, and that his party (the LDP) faced historic levels of opposition, there was a great deal of uncertainty as to whether or not Hase would remain in office to continue his work. Since I try to stay on top of the Japanese wrestling scene, when the election was over I tried to find out if he won his race. The only English-language website I found covering Hase’s election was Fight Opinion, which linked to a Japanese news site showing that Hase had lost the race in his district.
A few days later, someone posted a paragraph from this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It said that Hase had been elected in Ishikawa prefecture.
Hiroshi Hase was elected to the Japanese Diet (House of Representatives) once again in the 8/30 election. He has been serving in either the Japanese Senate or House since 1995 but it was thought that this was going to be a tough election for him to win, because the Jiminto Party (Liberal-Democrat Party) was in trouble and expected to, and did lose, a ton of seats in the election. For reasons I’m not clear, it was reported on several English language web sites that Hase lost, but it was confusion because Ken Okuda, who had lost elections to Hase in the past, reported as beating Hase, won a seat in the Ishikawa prefecture, in the senate. Hase was in a different race and won. Hase was elected in his home Ishikawa prefecture (state) to the House of Councilors, the lower lawmaking house.
That prompted me to do more research, eventually leading to another Japanese website (Yomiuri) showing Hase as having lost his race in Ishikawa. When I mentioned this in a reply to the person who posted the WON blurb, someone else showed me another page at Yomiuri which had Hase as getting a seat, but not through his district race. I did some more research and learned that some seats in Japan are determined based on the percentage of the national vote a party gets. Hase was close enough to the top of the LDP party list that he got in through an electoral backdoor. The story on Fight Opinion was a flash result of Hase’s race and was accurate on that topic, but like Meltzer failed to pick up on the party list aspect.
Topics: Japan, Media, Zach Arnold | No Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
ESPN: “The Hall of Famer just didn’t have it”
By Zach Arnold | August 29, 2009
On the brief clips shown of the Randy Couture/Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira UFC 102 fight on Sportscenter, the anchor (Kevin Negandhi) sounded incredibly sorrowful when talking about Couture’s fight performance. The highlights shown were the times Nogueira knocked down Couture.
Interestingly enough, “The Lead” portion of ESPN’s bottom ticker said “Couture goes the distance but loses to Nogueira at UFC 102.”
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
UFC 8/29 Rose Garden in Portland
By Zach Arnold | August 29, 2009
Dark matches
- Middleweights: Nick Catone vs. Mark Munoz
- Heavyweights: Tim Hague vs. Todd Duffee
- Heavyweights: Justin McCully vs. Mike Russow
- Heavyweights: Gabriel Gonzaga vs. Chris Tuchscherer
- Middleweights: Ed Herman vs. Aaron Simpson
Main card
- Light Heavyweights: Brandon Vera vs. Krzysztof Soszynski
- Middleweights: Nathan Marquardt vs. Demian Maia
- Middleweights: Chris Leben vs. Jake Rosholt
- Light Heavyweights: Keith Jardine vs. Thiago Silva
- Heavyweights: Randy Couture vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
Event reports: USA Today | AOL Fanhouse | Jake Rossen | Sherdog | MMA Weekly | MMA Junkie | Steve Cofield | Bryan Alvarez
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 83 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
(Boxing) The end of the line for Clinton Woods
By Zach Arnold | August 28, 2009
Tonight on ESPN2, the network aired a live boxing telecast from the Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida. The semi-main event featured veteran British fighter Clinton Woods against 27-year Tavoris Cloud and the two men were fighting for the IBF Light Heavyweight title. In the end, the fight between the two men wasn’t really much of a contest. Woods looked slow and sluggish while Cloud pretty much did what he wanted to do. Despite not getting a knockout finish, Cloud dominated the fight from start to finish and won the title. After the fight, media reports surfaced that Woods would retire. The irony coming out of the fight is that Cloud is challenging Chad Dawson to fight some younger fighters instead of Antonio Tarver.
In the main event, Juan Urango defeated Randall Bailey to retain his IBF Jr. Welterweight Title. Bailey knocked down Urango in R6, but Urango came back from the knockdown and punished Bailey until Bailey’s corner stopped the fight.
Topics: Boxing, Media, Zach Arnold | 7 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Gina Carano comments on her career post-Cyborg loss
By Zach Arnold | August 28, 2009
I wanted to take time to collect my thoughts and speak from the heart rather than spew out some cliché anecdote about a tough loss. I know I am a better fighter than the way I performed that night and was heartbroken to not give more to those who have been inspired. However, I find some relief in knowing that this has never been only about me, and now more than ever I feel freedom to learn and grow at my own pace. I make it a point to constantly remind myself throughout this journey who I am, what I am doing, and why. Life is the most amazing gift and I want to live it for the right reasons. To my family, coaches, management… thank you from the bottom of my heart for believing in me, loving and encouraging me. Also a special thanks to the fans who support me from their computers at home, watch me on television and scream for me in the stadiums. Because of you, barriers have been broken down and you have inspired me to believe in a larger dream. Congratulations to Cris Cyborg and the women of MMA who have a great platform to shine. I am more excited than ever for female fighters and this amazing sport which has transformed my life. God Bless.
Gina
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 27 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Reports: UFC heading to Vancouver in June of 2010
By Zach Arnold | August 28, 2009
A big show is reportedly set to take place at General Motors Place aka The Garage, where the Canucks play hockey every season. Joe Ferraro has more details on how this is coming together.
Ferraro also also talked to Wanderlei Silva, who needled him on his weight. Outrageously outrageous. One week Wanderlei is a total babyface promoting Chico and now he’s giving the business to Joe. Boooooo.
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
ESPN previews UFC 102
By Zach Arnold | August 27, 2009
For the first time in ages, Youtube embedding is allowed. Let’s see how long that lasts.
Since there are a ton of bloggers at ESPN HQ this week in Bristol: Someone reading this please tell them to ‘normalize‘ their Youtube channel videos. They are shooting themselves in the foot here.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Fedor vs. Brett Rogers in Fall of 2009 on Showtime
By Zach Arnold | August 27, 2009
An entirely predictable fight to book and good for Brett that he will make his first big pay day in the business.
Setting the line for this fight… I’d say Fedor -1000, Rogers +800. -1000 means a 90% chance of winning, for the record, which is a completely fair odd to lay on this fight.
Bonus observation: Behold the power of the Sherdog fighter rankings for Rogers being selected? Rogers is ranked #8 in the Independent World MMA Rankings.
Update: New York Daily News report on fans at the New York PR event yesterday:
“They didn’t organize it well,” said Doug Brown, a warehouse manager from East Meadow. “I’m not too happy right now.”
Organizers for the public workout admitted they were “overwhelmed” by the turnout and were dismayed that some fans left unhappy.
“We didn’t know how many people were going to show up,” said Scott Coker, founder and CEO of Strikeforce, which works with Emelianenko.
“If he had the UFC behind him, he’d be a lot more popular,” Brown said. “And the event would have been run smoother.”
Between the Nick Diaz fiasco and the way the Fedor situation has been handled (from the infamous conference call to this event), the media storyline on Scott Coker is now being established — he’s not ready for prime-time and he finds himself in situations not totally prepared. Is this a fair media storyline?
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 70 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
A note about MMA clips on ESPN’s Youtube channel
By Zach Arnold | August 26, 2009
In the past couple of weeks on the site, I’ve expressed my frustration with ESPN turning off embedding of video clips that they put on YouTube. What is the point of putting videos on the Youtube channel if you don’t want them to go viral? Unlike a lot of sports bloggers, I don’t hate ESPN and if anything, I wanted to be able to embed MMA Live clips weekly on the site. Instead, I can’t.
However, in the past couple of weeks, I’ve discovered something interesting going on with the ESPN Youtube channel. After they turned off embedding of Youtube clips, I noticed that the video clips are not being hosted on the Youtube site. When you play a standard Youtube clip, you will see that the video is being loaded from a Google server. Well, when you play an ESPN clip on Youtube, you will notice that Disney’s go.com server is being called to load the clip. It results in a slower load time and doesn’t do much at all in terms of having exclusive content on Youtube for users to share online.
ESPN’s Youtube channel has went from a standard Youtube-hosted video channel to a video channel with clips that can’t be embedded to a ‘video channel’ with clips that can’t be embedded and are hosted on Go.com servers instead of Youtube. Other than having a glorified RSS feed menu for ESPN clips on Youtube, what is the point of the channel? I’m mystified at what is going on and extremely disappointed that I cannot embed or link to MMA content that the network is claiming to display on the Youtube channel.
Update (8/26): Some interesting quirks on their YouTube channel. Some videos are now embeddable, while most aren’t. Some videos, when you click on their RSS feed, ask you to log into YouTube/Google in order to view it – including their Brett Favre spoof commercial directly on the channel.
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Musashi: I’ll retire, but give me one more K-1 GP tournament shot
By Zach Arnold | August 26, 2009
There was a press conference held today in Tokyo where Musashi asked for fans to encourage K-1 management to help get him a spot in an upcoming K-1 GP tournament, with an eye on the 9/26 Seoul, South Korea event.
Musashi said that with his debut in K-1 in 1995 and over 80 bouts during that timespan that it was time to wind his career down. However, he wants on more shot to fight and Musashi says that he is healthy for the first time in a long time. He noted that he is healed from left groin & dislocated left shoulder injuries that were suffered in the fight against Gegard Mousasi on NYE 2008.
Topics: Japan, K-1, Media, Zach Arnold | 16 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Demian Maia gets verbally slapped around by Anderson Silva & Nathan Marquardt
By Zach Arnold | August 26, 2009
He’s not a happy camper about what Anderson Silva has had to say about him and he won’t be happy with Marquardt’s comments about their upcoming fight this weekend as not a bout in a random jiu-jitsu tournament. Maybe Maia can call the BJJ Police.
Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
If Versus loses distribution outlets, what will the health of WEC be?
By Zach Arnold | August 25, 2009
The WEC 9/2 Youngstown, Ohio show has been canceled. It is rescheduled for October 10th in another city. Between this development and the fact that Versus may be off DirecTV and things are not looking positive right now for WEC. In regards to the show cancellation and the reason given (fighter injury), Dave Meltzer said, “There’s something fishy going on.”
Dave Meltzer: “I think that what happened is is that um they that they don’t want to do that show on September 2nd if DirecTV pulls them on September 1st. So, they’re giving them so they’re pulling the show so they have, because it makes no sense for WEC, you know, I … it’s how I read it. I mean maybe Ben Henderson really is hurt, but the thing that’s really strange me to is um it’s like if he really was hurt, they would just put, why don’t they just do the match on the next show? I mean, they’ve never postponed an actual show over someone being injured, they always have a replacement.”
Bryan Alvarez: “They didn’t cancel Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir after Frank got hurt, so they’re not… canceling a show because they have a Ben Henderson injury? I don’t buy it.”
Dave Meltzer: “No, I don’t either. Plus, it’s September 2nd and September 1st is when at this point they may go off DirecTV so you know that seems to add up and plus the other one is is that there, the show isn’t going to be in Youngstown when they do the remake of the show on October the 10th, so to me that also seems to indicate that they sold no tickets in Youngstown plus the Versus thing, so I’m thinking there’s both of those things, I mean I don’t know what the advance was in Youngstown, no one ever told me. And the fact that no one ever told me, probably means it was poor or wasn’t great, if it was great I would have heard.”
Topics: Media, MMA, WEC, Zach Arnold | 51 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |